#Wearehere: Somme tribute revealed as Jeremy Deller work

[geardaddy]

Turner prize-winning artist creates ‘human memorial’ of first world war battle, sending silent soldiers into cities and towns

Waterloo station, London: 8am. “I’m here, under the big clock,” said a man into his phone. So were about 20 young men, immediately conspicuous because they were dressed in the dull-green uniforms of the first world war. They were just there: not speaking, not even moving very much. Waiting, expressionless, for who knows what.

A small crowd gathered, taking photographs. A woman caught the eye of one of the men. She tried to speak to him. Without speaking or dropping his gaze, he pulled a small card out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Lance Corporal John Arthur Green,” it read. “1st/9th Battalion, London Regiment (Queen Victoria’s Rifles). Died at the Somme on 1 July 1916. Aged 24 years.”

There were similar scenes across the UK, from Shetland to Penzance and from Derry-Londonderry to Ipswich. There were more than 1,500 men in total. They gathered on the steps of the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow. They smoked roll-ups outside Bristol Temple Meads and marched, metal-tipped boots ringing, through Manchester Piccadilly. They stood in clumps by the entrance to Queen’s University, Belfast, and sat on the market cross in Lerwick, Shetland.

The groups tended to form at railway stations and then disperse, in smaller numbers, on foot to shopping centres, streets, markets, or by train to smaller towns and villages. Whenever they were approached, they silently handed the passerby a card. Photographs began to spring up on social media, under the hashtag #wearehere.

The rest and photos at link



https://twitter.com/i/videos/tweet/748931820629012480?embed_source=clientlib&player_id=0&rpc_init=1&conviva_environment=test

https://twitter.com/hashtag/wearehere?src=hash
Many more photos and videos at Twitter